Workers’ Self-Directed Enterprises: A Revolutionary Program

There is a lot of evidence that working people can manage workplaces, enterprises, and industries. What kind of self-managed economy would work best? How could it be achieved: by reform or revolution? How could self-management be integrated into the revolutionary program?

Workers’ Self-Directed Enterprises: A Revolutionary Program

Industrial Democracy and Revolution

There has been an increased advocacy lately of worker self-managed
enterprises (also called producer cooperatives, workplace
democracy, democratic ownership, “autogestion,” etc.). As
I shall show, this has been advocated as part of both reformist
and revolutionary programs. Faced with the evils of capitalism,
radicals are looking for alternatives which do not require the state
ownership and bureaucratic planning of the failed “communist”
(state capitalist) economies. Carl Davidson (2011, v) writes,
The matters of worker ownership and control are central to
the formulation of the deep structural reform policies and
proposals, both strategic and tactical, that will be needed as
bridges to a socialis[t] future.

In terms of liberal democratic theory, it is hard to explain
why most people spend most of their adult waking hours in authoritarian
workplaces, carrying out the orders of an unelected
minority. The political scientist Robert Dahl argued, “If democracy
is justified in governing the state, then it is also justified in governing
economic enterprises…. We have a right to govern ourselves
democratically within our economic enterprises” (1985, 124-125).
Instead of using this language of bourgeois-democracy,
Richard Wolff (2012, 12) builds on Marx’s critique of political
economy. He believes that enterprises should have neither
stock-owning boards of directors nor government-imposed state
managers (which he – correctly – calls state capitalism). Instead, the surplus-producing workers themselves would make the
basic decisions about production and distribution. They
would become, collectively and democratically, their own
board of directors…. Capitalist enterprises would thereby be
transformed into workers’ self-directed enterprises…. Such
reorganized production sites would partner with similarly
democratic organizations of residential communities…

In 1918, G.D.H. Cole and W. Mellor, guild socialists, wrote,

Socialists… must put their appeal to the workers not in
the question, ‘Is it not unpleasant to be poor?...’ but in this
form: ‘Poverty is but the sign of man’s enslavement; to cure
it you must cease to labor for others’.…
The ideal at which Labor must aim…can be summed up
in two words – direct management. The task of actively
conducting the business must be handed over to the
workers engaged in it. To them it must belong to order
production, distribution, and exchange. They must win …
the right to elect their own officers; … they must become
the accredited agents of the community in the economic
sphere. (quoted in Fromm, 1955, 249-250)

The idea of worker-controlled industry, then, is hardly new.
It goes back to the very origins of the socialist and workers’
movements in the 19th century. Anarchists have always been for
bottom-up workplace democracy as opposed to government-run
industry. The founder of anarchism as a movement, Michael
Bakunin, declared,

The cooperative workers associations have demonstrated
that the workers themselves, choosing administrators from
their own ranks, receiving the same pay, can effectively
control and operate industry. (1980, 424)

Karl Marx agreed. In his 1864 “Inaugural Address of the
International Working Men’s Association,” Marx hailed the passage
of a 10-hour day law as a great victory for the workers. This
has often been cited. But less well known is that he praised as

a still greater victory…. the cooperative factories raised
by the unassisted efforts of a few bold ‘hands’…. By deed,
instead of by argument, they have shown that production on
a large scale…may be carried on without the existence of a
class of masters employing a class of hands… (Marx, 1992;
79)

Over the next decades, the idea of worker management of
industry pretty much disappeared from the Marxist program. Instead,
both the Western social democratic parties and the Leninist
parties emphasized government ownership and centralized planning.
When that did not work out, they pivoted back to market
competition, by top-down enterprises, to move their economies.
It was anarchists and those politically close to anarchism (syndicalists,
guild socialists, cooperativists, council communists, and
other libertarian socialists) who kept the idea alive.

Self-Directed Enterprises

Nor is this just a matter of ideas. There is a long history of
worker-run businesses, from the early socialist movement until
today. There is hardly a type of enterprise which has not been run
as a producer cooperative (not to speak of the enormous number
of consumer cooperatives, housing cooperatives, credit unions
[co-op banks], land trusts, and marketing cooperatives). There
is a large literature on this topic, covering such enterprises as the
Plywood Co-ops of the Pacific Northwest or the influential Mondragon
Cooperative Corporation of the Basque country in Spain.
In 85 companies internationally, Mondragon includes 130,000
members, each with one share, one vote. Highly successful, it
has a credit union, and a technical college, joined in a federation
(discussed in Davidson, 2011; Sale, 1980; and Benello, 1992).

There has been the experience of the Israeli democratic collective
farms (kibbutzim). Yugoslavia had self-managed industries, on a
national scale, from 1950 to the 1970s (Pateman, 1970).
All these institutions worked (or still work), at least as well
as traditional capitalism or state capitalism – or better.

The people at Mondragon have a common phrase they use
to disenchant overly romantic visitors: “This is not heaven and
we are not angels.” (Davidson, 2011, 41) The co-ops have their
limitations and weaknesses (such as bureaucratism and inequal-
ity). This should not be surprising. Aside from the inevitable
fallibilities of human beings, these institutions all developed
within capitalist markets and national states, not under libertarian
communism! Naturally they have problems. Often, the best
producer (and consumer) co-ops “fail by success,” that is, they
work so well that they are integrated into the capitalist economy.
There is also the enormous amount of evidence from industrial/
organizational psychology and sociology. Consistently
research has found that increasing workers’ control of production
increases productivity, creativity, morale, lack of turnover,
attendance rates, and other useful work behaviors – even under
capitalism (Blumberg, 1973).

Finally, there is the evidence of revolutionary upheavals. Time
and again, in revolutions and rebellions, workers have seized
workplaces, occupied them, created workplace assemblies and
elected workplace committees, and even began to operate plants
without capitalist bosses. Such were the factory committees set
up in Russia after the 1917 revolution, which were destroyed by
the Bolsheviks (Brinton, 2004). Another example was the selfgoverning
farms and factories set up in Algeria after the Algerian
Revolution (Porter, 2011). A more recent example was the popular
rebellion in Argentina in December 2001 in which workers took
over and ran approximately 300 factories (Sitrin, 2006). Laid-off
workers have recently taken over and run a building supplies factory
in Greece (Flanders, 2013).

Perhaps the greatest example of workers’ self-management
on a large scale occurred during the Spanish revolution of 1936
to 1939. Workers took over and ran factories and industries of
all sorts, while peasants democratically collectivized their lands.
The workers and peasants worked out methods of coordination.
Despite opposition and sabotage from liberals and Stalinists, and
betrayal by their own leaders, anarchist workers demonstrated
industrial democracy in practice. (Dolgoff 1974; Price 2012)

The limitation of studying such examples is that they were all
eventually crushed, or, in Argentina,some were essentially
converted into producer cooperatives and integrated into the
capitalist economy (we have yet to see what will happen in Greece).

So self-governing enterprises can be justified by democratic
and socialist theory, and by historical and current experience.
While I cannot say that there is absolute proof, there is strong
evidence that working people can manage production democratically,
without a class of bosses. (There are vast literatures on all
these points, which I cannot begin to summarize in this little essay.
Aside from works I cite elsewhere, see Bayat, 1991; Hunnius,
Garson, & Case, 1973; Lindenfeld & Rothschild-Whitt, 1992.)

What Kind of Economy as the Goal?

Even if we accept the basic concept of workplace democracy,
there are two theoretical questions which must be answered. The
first is, what is our goal? What kind of society-wide economy are
we aiming for?

Some would integrate workplace democracy with centralized
planning and nationalized industry. Walda Katz-Fishman
declares, “Local and workplace initiatives and centralized planning
backed up by workers’ state power are interconnected and
interdependent.” (in Benello, 1992, 179) Marx may be interpreted
as advocating something like this (although he never details his
model of a post-capitalist economy). The problem is how to
balance centralization with autonomy. How can workers’ local
self-management be real if the workers are merely deciding how
to carry out their part of an overall plan which was created elsewhere
by others? This is a problem even with the most democratic
“workers’ state” (whatever that is taken to mean!). Not that some
sort of flexible, democratic federalism is impossible, but the idea
is not simple.

Another approach, widely considered among advocates of
worker-run enterprises, is that of democratic enterprises competing
with each other in the market (although the enterprises may
be owned by the community). This is the explicit program of
Dahl (1985) and Schweickart (2002). Davidson refers to “a longterm
post-revolutionary period with firms carrying on business
autonomously within a market economy.” (2011; p. 85)
As I quote Wolff above, “Capitalist enterprises would thereby
be transformed into workers’ self-directed enterprises.” Wolff
(2012) gives the impression of supporting a market system, mainly
because he expects worker self-directed enterprises to develop
under capitalist markets. However, he claims to be agnostic on
the nature of the best final system for integrating democratic
enterprises. They “can coexist with planning or markets or combinations
of both.” (p. 143)

Some kind of a market collectivism existed for decades in
Yugoslavia. As a program it goes back, at least, to P.J. Proudhon,
the first person to call himself an “anarchist.” It is consistent with
the ideas of the “individualist anarchists” (but not with the misnamed
“anarcho-capitalists,” who do not advocate democratic
management of business enterprises). It is also proposed by
some modern social democrats, so-called “democratic socialists.”
(Roosevelt & Belkin, 1994)

“Market socialism” was originally advocated by supporters of
central planning. They claimed that centrally planned economies
could simulate markets, in prices and commodity arrangements.
Nationally owned centralized economies could try to act as if they
were markets in certain ways (Lange & Taylor, 1964) – actually an
admission that this was state capitalism. What is being discussed
here is somewhat different. It might be called “decentralized
market socialism.” Worker-managed enterprises, consumer coops,
very small businesses and shops, family farms, etc., would
compete in the marketplace.

This is not “socialism” as meant by the historical mainstream
of the socialist movement. It has been called “social capitalism”
(Morehouse, 1997), with as much justification. Historically, most
socialists did not include the market (with money, commodity
exchange, and the law of value) as part of their goal. At most
that was seen as a remnant of capitalism in a post-revolutionary
society. As scarcity was overcome, the market (commodity exchange)
would die out and be replaced by conscious planning.
Yet neither is this model “capitalism.” There would be no
specialized classes of capitalists or workers (although we can
speculate that such classes would re-emerge under these conditions).
It would be most like a society of simple commodity
production, still under the pressures of the market and the law of
value. Like small shop-keepers, the workers would be capitalists to
themselves, “exploiting” themselves for the sake of the enterprise.

Economic democracy would be even more limited than in my
first model of a mixture of self-management and central planning.
There could be no democratic control over the overall economy,
which would go up and down according to laws of the market.
The workers of any one enterprise would chose how to respond
to the economic “weather,” but could not control the movements
of the economy itself. There would have to be some sort of state
or central authority to regulate the market (to the limited extent
that it could be regulated).

There would be business cycles, including periodic recessions.
Some self-managed businesses would do better than others; some
regions would do better than others; there would be inequalities
within enterprises as well as between them; there would be overproduction,
unemployment, areas of relative poverty, and various
amounts of resentment. All of which developed in Yugoslavia’s
self-managed market economy. The regional inequalities underlay
Yugoslavia’s explosive civil and national wars which broke out
after the collapse of Tito’s Communist dictatorship.

Other theorists of a self-managing economy have sought a
different type of system, one with neither a market nor centralized
planning. Such was the concept of the 1920s guild socialists
(Cole, 1980; Ostergaard, 1997; Pateman, 1970).
Some look to a federated system with as much decentralization
as possible (Benello, 1992; Morehouse, 1997). This builds
on the ideas of local self-governing enterprises intertwined with
local self-governing communities and consumer cooperatives.
Complete local self-reliance is neither possible nor desirable,
but there could be an emphasis on as much local autonomy as
possible – for municipalities, communes, cities and regions. The
more localized the community, the easier it will be for people to
democratically plan its overall economy.

The creators of “Parecon” (“participatory economics”) reject
this type of decentralization. Instead they want the U.S. to be
nationally organized into workplace councils and consumer (or
neighborhood) councils (Albert, 2003; Hahnel, 2005). The consumers’
councils would state (on the Internet) what they want/
need. The workplace councils would respond with what they could
produce, and what they would need in order to do so. Proposals
and counterproposals would go back and forth over the Internet
(with some overall guidance by “facilitation” boards). An overall,
country-wide, plan would be worked out, more-or-less acceptable
to everyone. This would be a noncentralized economic plan. See
also the variant model of “Inclusive Democracy” as proposed by
Takis Fotopoulos (1997).

Other models could be proposed or worked out in practice
in different regions and countries. It would have to be decided
practically how to balance decentralized planning and cooperation
with federated planning on a national, continental and global
scale, also whether there would be a use for any degree of market
mechanisms within the overall planning.

Reform or Revolution?

Davidson (2011) discusses possible strategies for getting to a
self-managed socialism, mainly in response to a theorist of “market
socialism,” Schweichert (2002). One is the alternate institution
strategy. “Economic democracy, including its firms,… could
be… a growing force that ultimately would supplant capitalism.”
(Davidson, 2011, 51) This is not only the claim that worker-run
enterprises should be built because they provide jobs, services
and are a useful model (a claim I agree with). Rather it is the
strategic claim that cooperative worker-run businesses could be so
successful that they can spread until they dominate the economy
and wipe out capitalism!

This is a popular idea among many (perhaps most?) U.S.
anarchists, among others. It is a delusion. It ignores the reality
that the capitalist class controls the marketplace as well as the
government at all levels. The ruling class will let people form a
relatively small number of cooperatives, mostly at the margins of
the economy. They will not let cooperatives “supplant” the U.S.
corporate steel industry, auto industry, oil industry, and the giant
banks. In the unlikely event that the co-ops could accumulate
enough capital to threaten to “supplant” these semi-monopolies,
the capitalists would cancel bank and government credit, forbid
the use of transportation and communication by the co-ops, and
pass laws against the cooperators. The courts and police would
enforce these laws.

Another suggested strategy is electoralism, or what used to be
called the “parliamentary road to socialism.” “A political party…
could win a majority of the electorate and… decree economic
democracy by passing laws and executive orders” (p. 51). Many
Marxists today advocate such a new party. To respond to this is to
raise again the argument that the state is not a neutral instrument
but an institution of the ruling capitalist class and its system (a
belief traditionally held by revolutionary anarchists as well as
left Marxists). It would require a review of the historical failures
of social democratic parties, the rise of European fascism, the
counter-revolution in Chile in 1973 (when a left-wing government
got too threatening for the capitalist class), and so on. If a popular
party which advocated economic democracy got anywhere near
taking over the government, it would surely be crushed by legal
means or illegal ones: courts denying lines on the ballot, the
rising of well-paid fascists, the threat of a military coup, and the
cancellation of elections.

It is also possible to advocate both approaches, as does Wolff
(2012) or Hahnel (2005). (For my criticism of Hahnel’s two-pronged
strategy see Price, 2005.) Those who advocate either
strategy are sincere in wanting a wholly new society. But they
wish to get there by step-by-step, gradual, mostly peaceful and
legal methods, without ever expecting a direct conflict with the
capitalists and their state. Which is what defines these strategies
as reformist – and as unrealistic.

A political party of popular and economic democracy could
take power through revolutionary insurrection at a time of
severe crisis brought on by war, fascism, or ecological and
economic disaster. Economic democracy would be organized
as the way to resolve the crisis and put the country on its
feet again. (52)

It is unclear what he means by a “political party” which he
sees as “tak[ing] power.” I am all for an organization of workers
and others committed to economic democracy which would argue
and fight for this idea. I do not want this organization to “take
power” by itself but to be part of the working class and all the
oppressed taking power on their own behalf, through workplace
councils and neighborhood assemblies. That is how “economic
democracy would be organized.”

Davidson is co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence
for Democracy and Socialism (which split from the Communist
Party during the Perestroika era). He begins his book by referring
to “countries where socialists are in power and are persisting on
the socialist path,” meaning, he writes, Cuba, Vietnam “and, to a
degree, China.” (vi) Since these three countries are all one-party
dictatorships, and the “socialists in power” are the dictators, it is
awfully puzzling what Davidson means by “economic democracy”
and why he advocates it.

Workers’ Self-Management and the Revolutionary Program

As a revolutionary anarchist I believe that at some point a
revolution of some sort will be necessary to achieve economic
democracy. But we must not simply wait for “a severe crisis”
(which is developing, but its date is out of our hands). We have
to work out a revolutionary program now, or more precisely, a
transitional program: a program for beginning to build socialism
under the right conditions. This is a program which cannot yet
be implemented (without majority support) but around which
people can presently organize and mobilize. There are many sub-
jects covered by such a program, but I am focusing on the call for
economic democracy. I am raising workers’ self-management not
only as a morally good thing but as the solution to the growing
crisis – the way to “put the country on its feet again.”

The transitional program for economic democracy would
demand: Expropriate the Capitalist Businesses!
Expropriate means to take away the capital, the wealth, of
the capitalists, in whole or in part, without paying them anything.
It means to socialize the corporations.

Which capitalist firms should be expropriated? Those that have
shut down. Those which are still open but are laying off workers.
Those which are moving overseas or to low wage areas inside the
U.S. Those which manufacture armaments. Those which resist
unionization or decent pay and working conditions. Those which
cause pollution or are otherwise anti-ecological. Those which
dominate the national economy without control. Those which
will not cooperate in creating a prosperous, fully employed,
ecologically balanced, and radically democratic society. Which
means, eventually, all of them.

The former capitalist enterprises should be socialized by being
handed over to democratic workers’ control, in cooperation with local
working class communities. This means one worker, one share, one vote,
with managers, when needed, to be chosen by the workers in a
manner they decide, with pay scales to be decided by the workers
themselves. Even short of this, unions should demand measures of
directly democratic workers’ control for the shop floor (or office).

Who is to do this expropriation? Reformists and liberals
will call on this, existing, state. Revolutionaries should not have
problems with such demands on the state. The state makes a
claim to represent all the people (and it does, in fact, have a lot
of the community’s money). Why not call its bluff? But we warn
the people that it will never (or very rarely) carry out such expropriations.
We aim to expose the state’s pretentions.

Instead the workers should do it themselves, occupying
factories and running them without the bosses. They should
build an association of workplace councils and neighborhood
assemblies to replace the capitalist bureaucratic state, to back up
such expropriations from below.

We should call for a Public Works Program, for jobs for
everyone able to work, and for rebuilding the economy in an
ecological way. Both new government projects and previous government
enterprises (such as schools and the post office) should
be managed by their employees, again with cooperation with the
local people (especially parents).

I also agree with Davidson’s advocacy of “public funding
for startups of worker-controlled cooperative businesses.” (2011,
70) Similarly Wolff declares, “a jobs program today should include
provisions to provide founding capital to workers willing to commit
to building [workers’ self-directed enterprises].” (2012, 170)
Workers should work together with local communities and
with specialists to find ways to retool and reorganize their workplaces,
in order to make them easier to manage democratically
and to run in an ecological manner. Workplaces that produce
pollutants or armaments should do research into alternate, useful,
products, such as was carried out by workers at Britain’s Lucas
Aerospace in the 1970s.

So long as self-directed enterprises still exist in a mainly
capitalist economy, then they have to compete on the market, like
it or not…. or die. But when many workplaces are taken over they
should link up, send representatives to each other, and organize
city-wide, regional, national and international coordination. They
should aim to replace the market with planning from below.
This is not the whole of a program for a socialist-anarchist
working class revolution. Not by a long shot. But it is the core of
a program for economic democracy as part of that broader program.
As society got rid of its divisions into lords and serfs and
masters and slaves, so we will get rid of capitalists and workers,
bosses and employees, rulers and ruled. Working people must
cease to labor for masters.

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Comments (4 of 4)

First, direct worker management is obviously a central part of the program of revolutionary libertarian syndicalism. The most extensive seizure and direct worker management of industry in history occurred in Spain in 1936-37, and largely through the efforts of the CNT. According to statistics compiled by Burnett Bolletin (a UPI reporter in Spain at the time), the workers seized 18,000 companies and 14 million acres of farmland. In an essay in 1990 the Spanish Marxist Fernando Claudin suggested that the explanation for this lies in the preparation that had been provided over the years within the revolutionary syndicalist movement, with the emphasis on taking over the workplace & putting it under worker management being one of the first things in a revolution. In the way that the CNT organized itself and its struggles, through worker assemblies & shop steward councils, the self-management practice prefigured the self-management of industry that was built.

A basic problem with Price's article is that it provides no plausible strategy for ever achieving a self-managed socialism based on direct worker management. Talking about groups of anarchists talking about this idea is not enough to make such a strategy since it has to be a mass process, based on a working class mass movement.

The second thing that is peculiar about this piece is that he thinks guild socialism was decentralized (whatever that exactly means) but participatory economics is not. This is not plausible. Both guild socialism and participatory economics are conceptions of the socialist program based on social production being governed by a form of negotiated coordination between the masses of people (organized in some directly democratic way such as neighborhood assemblies), who use public services and products, and the worker organizations that produce them.

A defect in guild socialism is that they had no conception of how accurate estimates of social opportunity costs (prices) could be arrived at through negotiation. The only part of Hahnel & Albert's model that is an innovation is participatory planning. This is precisely designed to overcome this weakness of guild socialism. It's based, as guild socialism is, on relative autonomy of the workplace organizations on the one hand and neighborhood assemblies (what guild socialists called "ward meetings") and local & regional federations in the course of developing social plans for production. Hahnel and Albert simply add the idea of social opportunity costs being arrived at through a process of number crunching. A regional council, attached to the regional revolutionary federation, would aggregate all the proposals & requests for product, to determine estimates of proposed supply & demand, and prices would then fall out of that by some socially agreed on pricing rule. In the making of their plans & in carrying out their work, all worker production organizations would be autonomous. The regional planning assistance council would simply do the number crunching & announce the prices. That's all. Negotiation about production can't really proceed without accurate information about the costs of the various alternatives for production.

Tom finds “two things that are peculiar about this piece.” He does not mention anything good about it either, although he would seem to be in agreement about the importance of workers’ control of industry. In fact he treats this as old hat, asking “What about revolutionary syndicalism?” It is indeed old hat for libertarian socialists (including anarcho-syndicalists, other anarchists, guild socialists, etc., as we'll as councilist/anti-statist Marxists). I commented on that. But he does not seem to realize just how important it is that there is a new upsurge of interest in self-management of industry, even by people who never heard of Spain in the thirties. How to respond to this? That is what I am focusing on.

Tom charges, “A basic problem with Price's article is that it provides no plausible strategy for ever achieving a self-managed socialism….” This is a strange charge since I wrote a whole section on “Workers’ Self-Management and the Revolutionary Program.” I suggested a number of demands which might educate workers about industrial self-management. I wrote that revolutionaries should raise demands to expropriate the capitalists. I proposed that “the workers should …[be] occupying factories and running them without the bosses. They should build an association of workplace councils and neighborhood assemblies to replace the capitalist bureaucratic state, to back up such expropriations from below.”

I do not know why Tom sees this as counterposed to “a mass process, based on a working class mass movement.” He seems to counter building a layer of radicalized anarchist workers to building a mass movement, while I see them as part of the same process. Perhaps he sees building federations of revolutionary anarchists as somehow a barrier to building a “working class mass movement?” If so, he should say so.

In any case, I find it bizarre for a defender of Pareconism to criticize a revolutionary anarchist for “not having a plausible strategy for ever achieving a self-managed socialism”. As Tom knows perfectly well, both Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel—the creators and founders of Pareconism—have openly advocated reformist strategies (I have demonstrated this in the past). Albert, at least, is a supporter of the late Hugo Chavez’s politics. So far as I know, Tom does not agree with them on this subject, but he can hardly raise Parecon as an alternative. Nor do I think that the historical trend of anarcho-syndicalism can be applied directly, without modification, as a program for today, however much I agree with its values. Just referring to Spain is not enough. The mainstream tradition of revolutionary class struggle anarchism needs to be rethought for today. Which is what my article (and other articles I have written) tries to do. (At this point, I am not going to get into a discussion about guild socialism, Parecon, decentralization, and the uses of prices [and markets] under libertarian socialism.)

Says Wayne: " I find it bizarre for a defender of Pareconism to criticize a revolutionary anarchist for “not having a plausible strategy for ever achieving a self-managed socialism”. As Tom knows perfectly well, both Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel—the creators and founders of Pareconism—have openly advocated reformist strategies"

This is an obvious fallacy. I don't support "parecon" (Micheal Albert's term) but I agree with aspects of it. in any case the relevant point is that I was defending participatory planning as a conception of how a coordinated self-managed socialism can work. This has nothing whatever to do with strategy. So for Wayne to bring up Hahnel and Albert's reformist strategies...which he knows I don't agree with...is simply irrelevant. Like throwing sand in the air to confuse the viewer. Neither Albert not Hahnel are syndicalists. Either we talk about strategy or we talk about the model of socialism...which is it?

Of course a revolutionary libertarian unionism that is adequate for the 21st century is not going to look like the syndicalism of 1930s Spain or the IWW of the World War 1 era. Periods of mass working class insurgency always have their unique characteristics. The issues and fault lines today, the groups in motion, the kinds of struggles...these things are different today. But the point is that it seems completely implausible to suppose that the working class could liberate itself without engaging in struggle in the area of primary exploitation and boss control, and also quite unlikely that mass takeovers would occur without having a background in a worker controlled unionism.

What I object to here is Wayne's emphasis on the anarchist vanguard rather than on the development of ongoing mass organizations through which the working class develops its confidence, skill, and organizational capacity on a mass basis.

Wow, quite a belated response--two years later! However, I will comment.

Tom writes: "What I object to here is Wayne's emphasis on the anarchist vanguard rather than on the development of ongoing mass organizations...."

I reject the counterposition of EITHER the anarchist minority OR mass organizations. Like Tom I want to see revolutionary democratic mass unions and workers taking over workplaces and industries and establishing workers' councils. Unfortunately, this is not happening just yet. We do not have these revolutionary unions or workers' councils. What we do have is a small minority of revolutionary class struggle anarchists who could organize themselves to spread the ideas of radicalized democratic unions and worker occupation of workplaces. I believe in organizing and building this revolutionary minority (so-called "vanguard") to advocate and work for the militant unions and occupied workplaces. (This minority would not be a party since it would not aim to take power for itself, either thru elections or a coup.) It would compete with the authoritarian influences on the workers, which are promoted by the existing union leaders, Stalinists, liberals, and fascists. It would certainly not substitute for the independent mass action of the workers, but it would participate in that action and help it along the best it could.

The last I heard, Tom was a member of a U.S. class struggle anarchist organization, the WSA, so I thought that he agreed with me on this point. But perhaps he just objects to what he thinks is my "emphasis." I can't help that.

High levels of military spending played a key role in the unfolding European sovereign debt crisis — and continue to undermine efforts to resolve it.
A new report by the Transnational Institute — ‘Guns, Debt and Corruption: Military Spending and the EU Crisis’ — looks at the ways in which excessive militarization directly fed into the unfolding European debt crisis, and continues to undermine efforts to resolve it. Below the downlink links and infographic you can find the executive summary of the report.

Annnouncemt of a new book by Wayne Price which is an introduction for anarchists and other libertarian socialists to Karl Marx's crtique of political economy. In what ways can Marx's economic critique be of assistance to anarchists? What are anarchists' critique of Marx's economic theories, goals, and method?

To move ahead and build international solidarity, all the movements must come together on a European scale. The capitalists know how to organise on that level and how to adopt the treaties they expect to seal peoples’ fates with. We, the working men and women of Europe, have not yet achieved this level of organisation, even though alternative forms of trade union organistion have found ways to converge. This effort must be pursued, and a response organised on an international level. [Français] [Ελληνικά] [Nederlands]

Faced with this situation, we must respond with struggle and solidarity between the workers in affected countries. Faced with attacks like these, internationalism is more necessary than ever: we need a Europe-wide social movement! [Français] [Ελληνικά] [Deutsch] [Dansk]

In recent weeks, the signs of anger among the peoples of Europe have been increasing: a general strike in Portugal, demonstrations of historic proportions in Ireland, the student movement in England and, hopefully, the beginning of a lasting movement following the mobilizations over pension reforms in France. [Français] [Castellano] [Português] [Italiano] [Català]

In the tragic and bloody framework of the wars (both geopolitical wars and wars for the sake of war) for the strategic control of raw materials, which from the Middle East to Central Asia sees a clash of imperialist interests for the control of energy resourses and of the various corridors needed to bring oil, gas and water out of the area, the stakes have been raised by Putin's (and Gazprom's) Russia on the very eve of Putin taking over the presidency of the G8 and Gazprom placing 49% of its juicy shares on the market.

Anarchists want a non-market socialist economy, with free access to goods and services. Is this just a nice but impossible idea? Is an efficient economy possible without money, trade or barter? Terry reports from the discussion at an anarchist meeting in Dublin on this topic.

Trade unions have played a major role in defending workers’ rights against the bosses and politicians, also in advancing workers’ interests. This is why, even today, workers are still loyal to their unions. However, there are obstacles within the unions – one being the union bureaucracy, of paid and full-time officials. This can develop its own interests, undermining the unions.

This is a challenge faced by many unions. This bureaucracy is at times unable to represent workers’ grievances effectively: they often spend more time fighting amongst themselves for certain positions within the union instead of for workers’ rights. Due to this bureaucracy, which is structured hierarchically, higher positions hold more power, including in terms of decision-making. Those in leadership are often full-time and recieve much higher salaries than those of the workers they represent. This means they often want to prevent union actions that threaten their own positions, like long strikes.

Wayne Price has defended Marx's critique of political economy as useful for revolutionary anarchists. In the past many anarchists have agreed. But some have not, such as Kropotkin. Several topics in Marx's economic theory are discussed, criticisms reviewed, and responses given.

Introduction: Since the Kobanê siege started I have been dedicated several hours per week to understand and divulgate as much as possible about this social revolution initiated in a combination of Apoism and the Syrian Civil War. As a militant, I always have been involved in international solidarity. As an Arab descendent, I always have been trying to find a reliable left-wing force combining direct action and internal democracy. As a scholar and a Professor of Geopolitics studying the region for more than 25 years, Rojava is a dream coming true. Here I start the first of some interviews to organizations with real experience in this process and on the ground. This one I’m talking to Devrimci Anarşist Faaliyet (DAF, or Revolutionary Anarchist Action). They have been very active in this activity and understand in details the whole Kurdish process, both in Rojava and inside the Turkish State frontiers.

Since 2009 the US state has been undertaking Quantitative Easing (QE), which has involved the US state creating $ 85 billion a month, effectively electronically printing money out of thin air, and linking this to the “purchasing” of paper assets like US government bonds and also more importantly mortgaged backed securities from banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, and asset management companies, which lost their value when the capitalist crisis hit hard in 2008. Through this, these financial institutions and banks have been given up to $ 85 billion a month for the last five years. Much of this money has been used by these corporations to increase their speculative activity, including speculating on government bonds sold by the likes of the South African, Brazilian, Argentinean, and Turkish states. Now the US state has been looking to start tapering QE and speculators as a result are exiting these government bond markets. As this article explores it will probably not be the ruling class (capitalists and top state officials) that suffer the worst convulsions associated with tapering, although they may be affected, but the working class in countries such as South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia, India, Argentina and Turkey. This article examines why and how this could take place, how ruling classes from different countries are trying to protect themselves; and why and how the working class will in all likelihood be worst hit. In order to, however, understand how the class war around QE is unfolding it is important first to look at the role states have played during the crisis, along with the competition that exists between states.

Like the fading sun of the Summer, there is now little time left to enjoy the last days of Eurostasis we have been enveloped in of late. The relative calm that descended on the Eurocrisis, with the brief exception of the Cyrpus panic in March, is coming to an end with the German elections this coming Sunday.

Annnouncemt of a new book by Wayne Price which is an introduction for anarchists and other libertarian socialists to Karl Marx's crtique of political economy. In what ways can Marx's economic critique be of assistance to anarchists? What are anarchists' critique of Marx's economic theories, goals, and method?

To move ahead and build international solidarity, all the movements must come together on a European scale. The capitalists know how to organise on that level and how to adopt the treaties they expect to seal peoples’ fates with. We, the working men and women of Europe, have not yet achieved this level of organisation, even though alternative forms of trade union organistion have found ways to converge. This effort must be pursued, and a response organised on an international level. [Français] [Ελληνικά] [Nederlands]

Faced with this situation, we must respond with struggle and solidarity between the workers in affected countries. Faced with attacks like these, internationalism is more necessary than ever: we need a Europe-wide social movement! [Français] [Ελληνικά] [Deutsch] [Dansk]

In recent weeks, the signs of anger among the peoples of Europe have been increasing: a general strike in Portugal, demonstrations of historic proportions in Ireland, the student movement in England and, hopefully, the beginning of a lasting movement following the mobilizations over pension reforms in France. [Français] [Castellano] [Português] [Italiano] [Català]

In the tragic and bloody framework of the wars (both geopolitical wars and wars for the sake of war) for the strategic control of raw materials, which from the Middle East to Central Asia sees a clash of imperialist interests for the control of energy resourses and of the various corridors needed to bring oil, gas and water out of the area, the stakes have been raised by Putin's (and Gazprom's) Russia on the very eve of Putin taking over the presidency of the G8 and Gazprom placing 49% of its juicy shares on the market.